1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a laser scanning unit and an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a laser scanning unit including a sub-scanning optical system having an asymmetric optical path with reference to a light deflector, and an image forming apparatus employing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In laser printers, laser scanning units scan a photoconductive drum using a light beam to form an electrostatic latent image. Black and white laser printers transfer only a black toner onto a print medium, and thus use one laser scanning unit and one organic photo-conductor (OPC) drum. In contrast, color laser printers transfer black, magenta, yellow, and cyan toners onto a print medium, and thus respectively require four sub-scanning optical systems and four OPC drums (i.e., a laser scanning unit for each of the colors to be applied). However, laser scanning units account for a large percentage of the fabrication cost of a color laser printer and greatly affect print quality. Therefore, in order to decrease the fabrication cost of a color laser printer, the number of components of the laser scanning unit needs to be reduced, and the scanning characteristics of the sub-scanning optical systems need to be improved.